Search effort
Two levels of work for a search. Use medium for most questions, and high for the hard ones.
Effort sets how much work ByteRover puts into a search, and you pick one of two levels each time you search.
medium | high | |
|---|---|---|
| Use it for | Most questions | Hard questions, where a wrong passage has a cost |
| What you get | Passages with page and heading path, best first | The same, after a deeper check |
| Time | Shorter | Longer |
| Price | Lower | Higher |
A search returns passages. A cited answer, or "not found", comes from the Ask page in the app, which takes the same effort. Agents and the API search for passages only.
How to choose
Start with medium, and switch to high when:
- The question needs facts from more than one place, such as "Which contracts renew automatically, and what notice do they need?"
- The answer feeds a decision, a filing or a reply to a customer, and you want the strongest support for it.
- A
mediumsearch returned passages that are close to the subject but don't answer the question.
high can't make up for a missing file. If the answer isn't in your files, more effort won't find it.
Rules
- Effort is required in every API request. An agent search uses
mediumunless the agent sendshigh, and the agent sendshighonly when you ask for it in clear words. - ByteRover never changes the effort for you. A search that fails returns an error and isn't retried at a lower level. After an error, try again at the same effort.
- Every result says which effort it used.
What changes in the result
Both efforts return results in the same shape. A result has an optional picked field, which neither effort sets now.
What it costs
Every search has a price. high costs more than medium, and an answer costs the same as a search at the same effort. See Pricing and billing for the prices.
Where you use it
- In the app: Ask a question and read the result.
- With an agent: ask for high effort when you need it, for example "Check the refund policy with high effort". See Tools.
- With the API: the
effortfield. See Search.